Is the XPS 15 worth it?

[acercon]

On dell's sale, I saw an XPS 15 with  i5-8300H Processor (8M Cache, up to 4.0 GHz, 4 Cores), Intel HD 630 and 1TB 5400RPM 2.5" SATA Solid State Hybrid Drive for $1200 CAD, 922.48US. I will mostly use this laptop for school so battery life is important and the most demanding game I will play on it is probably OverWatch or League of Legends.

 

Another option is the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 with i5-8250U Processor (6MB Cache, up to 3.4GHz) and NVIDIA GeForce MX130 4GB GDDR5 for $949.99CAD, $ 730.31US. Is this a better deal?

Which one should I get or are there better deals?

[DrMacintosh]

IntelHD 630 is not going to be enough for OverWatch on any playable settings. League might be ok, but you really want something with dedicated graphics or at least Intel Iris Graphics. 

 

Something you can try doing is looking into AMD Ryzen APU laptops. 

[Daniel1]

Not worth it for playing Overwatch.  It is a good laptop for school.  

[acercon]

2 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

IntelHD 630 is not going to be enough for OverWatch on any playable settings. League might be ok, but you really want something with dedicated graphics or at least Intel Iris Graphics. 

 

Something you can try doing is looking into AMD Ryzen APU laptops. 

Are AMD based laptops a lot faster? I don't know much about the new AMD chips. I found an Inspiron 17 5000 with AMD Ryzen™ 5 2500U Mobile Processor with Radeon™ Vega8 Graphics for $899.99CAD

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

I'd grab this Dell G5 and a 2.5" HDD instead, it'll offer excellent gaming performance and the day-to-day speeds of an SSD

[DrMacintosh]

1 minute ago, acercon said:

Are AMD based laptops a lot faster? I don't know much about the new AMD chips. I found an Inspiron 17 5000 with AMD Ryzen™ 5 2500U Mobile Processor with Radeon™ Vega8 Graphics for $899.99CAD

Their biggest gain is their graphics performance and power efficiency. 

[acercon]

1 minute ago, OrbitalBuzzsaw said:

I'd grab this Dell G5 and a 2.5" HDD instead, it'll offer excellent gaming performance and the day-to-day speeds of an SSD

how are the G5 with battery life? I need it to last 5hrs at least 

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

Just now, acercon said:

how are the G5 with battery life? I need it to last 5hrs at least 

The G3 has 4.5 hours and I'd expect this to be about the same. If you're careful with power states you can almost certainly make it last 5 hours, maybe even a little longer

[DrMacintosh]

4 minutes ago, valdyrgramr said:

I mean you can't have battery life and a good GPU for gaming.

Ryzen APUs my guy. 

[DrMacintosh]

2 minutes ago, OrbitalBuzzsaw said:

The G3 has 4.5 hours and I'd expect this to be about the same. If you're careful with power states you can almost certainly make it last 5 hours, maybe even a little longer

Does that laptop have on the fly GPU switching?

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

Just now, DrMacintosh said:

Does that laptop have on the fly GPU switching?

Can't tell, Dell doesn't advertise it on the site but I would be surprised if it did not

[DrMacintosh]

Just now, OrbitalBuzzsaw said:

Can't tell, Dell doesn't advertise it on the site but I would be surprised if it did not

Idk, I’ve seen people buy similar machines only to find that graphics don’t switch. 

 

If it doesnt, a Ryzen APU based laptop makes the most sense imo. 

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

1 minute ago, DrMacintosh said:

Idk, I’ve seen people buy similar machines only to find that graphics don’t switch. 

 

If it doesnt, a Ryzen APU based laptop makes the most sense imo. 

Still, if you can live with 5 hours you'll almost certainly be fine with 4.5. I live with 2 hours on my laptop (for the next 2 months till I upgrade, probably to that G5, anyhow) so...

[DrMacintosh]

1 minute ago, OrbitalBuzzsaw said:

 I live with 2 hours on my laptop (for the next 2 months till I upgrade, probably to that G5, anyhow) so...

Wtf, what garbage laptop are you using?

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

1 minute ago, DrMacintosh said:

Wtf, what garbage laptop are you using?

POS Dell Inspiron with a Skylake 4/8, 16G of RAM, 500GB SSD and no dGPU

[C1intFunWood]

I'm currently writing this on a Lenovo Legion Y530, basically the same as a Dell G3, but much more stylish and toned down IMO. Dave Lee has a video about, if you would like to check it out.

[DrMacintosh]

3 minutes ago, valdyrgramr said:

They're not that great, though.  They work, but you're getting less than a 1030 in terms of performance.

That’s perfect for OverWatch and you get the benefit of better battery life. 

[DrMacintosh]

Just now, valdyrgramr said:

Maybe on lower settings, but I mean you can't have a 1060 and expect battery life.

Which is the trade off. This is supposed to be a school machine first. You can’t have a machine with a dGPU like that that needs to survive a whole day in some cases. 

[DrMacintosh]

5 minutes ago, valdyrgramr said:

I mean they could always do the external method later if they wanted.

That’s true. 

 

@acercon What do you think about buying a laptop with integrated graphics and high portability and also getting an eGPU solution later? It will be more expensive, but it makes the most sense.

[acercon]

2 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

That’s true. 

 

@acercon What do you think about buying a laptop with integrated graphics and high portability and also getting an eGPU solution later? It will be more expensive, but it makes the most sense.

Sure! what do you suggest with that? does XPS 15 support Thunderbolt?

[Mark77]

I'd personally suggest getting one of the Latitudes, not the XPS, for school.  The Latitude line are true business-class qualify notebooks.  The XPS is more aimed at 'consumers', and accordingly, has a lower warranty period, less availability of parts, etc.